


What Follows

by storiesfortravellers



Category: The OC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot about Ryan's time between Seasons 3 & 4. His thoughts on Seth while he's isolated, living alone, doing his fight-club thing, after what happened to Marissa. Ryan/Seth and Ryan/male implied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Follows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for comment_fic on livejournal
> 
> Prompt was Ryan/Seth "I'll follow you into the darkness" by Death Cab for Cutie

When Ryan left, he hadn't said much. Almost didn't say good bye.

But Seth had caught him. And Seth knew he wouldn't be able to keep Ryan in Harbor, not now. So he assented to the fierceness of the warning in Ryan's eyes. Just handed him a mix disc and said, "You HAVE to listen to this. I mean it."

And Ryan nodded before walking out the door, mostly to stop Seth from saying anything else.

Ryan didn't listen to it until a week later. He was lying on the grimy floor of his new place, and his plan to clean his fight wounds had taken second to lying there motionless and hurting. Of course, the pain wasn't helped whe Ryan tried to earn cash by letting some dude slap him around while Ryan blew him. But it had felt like the thing to do. So right, in fact, that he left without taking any money.

He had bought a fifth on the way home from the QwikEMart that didn't check ID's, but then he realized that if he drank and cried every night, and also kept going back to the same guys even though he knew they were going to kick his ass... well, then he would be literally exactly like his mother.

So he lay there. And tried not to think.

Eventually, he had to take a piss and he managed to stand and do a slow, awkward imitation of walking. After, he leaned with his arms on the sink to splash a little water on the worst cuts on his face. Good enough, he thought, as he briefly looked at the reflection in the mirror, angry but satisfied at seeing the welts on his shoulder and the bruises on his face.

He noticed the CD again on the way out of the bathroom. Tossed on the floor with some other stuff Ryan didn't look at any more.

He really didn't want to listen to it.

But. He knew it had taken everything Seth had to let him go without a scene. And all he asked in return was to listen to some overly trendy music.

So he listened. And he recognized the vocalist on the first song right away. Death Cab. Seth's favorite.

Marissa had liked them too.

But as Ryan fought to listen to the lyrics, wondering what obscure Lord of the Rings reference Seth intended him to pick up on, he suddenly remembered that Seth didn't really do subtle.

"I'll follow you into the dark."

Ryan shut his eyes tightly, even though it hurt like hell to. Of course. Of course Seth wants to follow him into the dark.

Everyone thought of Seth as a bit of a coward. But Seth had never been anything but rash when it came to loving Ryan. Seth's love, for three years now. Hurtling toward Ryan faster than a truck, but hitting him soft, like water or silk.

Sandy and Kirsten loved him. But no one had ever loved him like Seth did. Not even Marissa.

And he knew that Seth meant it. His mixtape-as-eternal-vow. If Ryan asked Seth to live in grime and patch up Ryan's wounds, if he asked Seth to throw away his future, if he asked Seth to fuck him until he felt like he was breaking in two, until he couldn't hold on to a single thought or memory, until he couldn't remember his own damn name much less what he had lived through ... Seth would do it. Ryan knew that about him, even if no one else did.

But Seth and the Cohens were the closest he had ever come in his life to having something pure. To feeling clean, like he could be loved and trusted. And actually deserve to be loved and trusted.

It was a lie, of course. Like everything in the OC, it was plastic and temporary. He deserved what he had now, not what he had with Cohens.

But he would never, ever let Seth follow him.


End file.
